Quite a few words are mispronounced by under-educated people, or people learning English as a second language. Some words are often mispronounced by quite educated people who read, and began reading high-level literature before they heard the vocabulary spoken.

This can lead to a vocabulary dissonance, occasionally leading to the belief that there are two words (the known spelling of one, and the verbal hearing of the same) where only one exists. Epitome is a common example that springs to mind.

Answer with a word and its proper pronunciation (and potentially, the commonly mistaken punctuation).

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OK, it's a greek word (ὑπερβολή) so its pronounciation is close to the greek pronounciation; what I find funny is, me being Greek but never having heard the english word spoken out loud, I also thought it rhymed with “superbowl” :)
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ΤΖΩΤΖΙΟΥOct 13 '10 at 8:23

Actually, I think I got that one straight before I ever tried to use it myself, but I did say "tongoo" instead of "tongue."...For the record though, I was, like, six. :)
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kitukwfyerAug 19 '10 at 21:58

I always thought it was "seeg" or "seyg" in the same way "The Hague" is pronounced "hayg".
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DisgruntledGoatSep 8 '10 at 12:37

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@Noldorin: I used to think it was seg-yoo, like "argue", "continue", etc. Don't ask me what I thought about "fugue".
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ShreevatsaRNov 23 '10 at 14:34

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@Noldorin: I think it’s pretty fair to say that in English the pronunciation of segue is \seg-way\. The general rule is that borrowed words get their closest approximation within the native phonetic stock; and word final \-eh\ is fairly foreign to English, so approximating it to \-ay\ seems quite reasonable (compare English pronunciations of café, forte, cum laude, which all have slightly different vowels in the original but become \-ay\ in English).
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PLLJan 12 '11 at 16:29

Another case of "colonelisation", where the orthography was changed from the original French loan (vittaylle) to reflect its origin in Latin (victualia) despite no change in pronunciation. Sigh.
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Jon PurdyOct 19 '10 at 14:57

This is why English words should keep the accents (and cedilla in this case) of foreign words.
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NoldorinAug 27 '10 at 15:17

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@Noldorin: That really wouldn't help, IMO. I'd seen a cedilla on the place-name "Caracau" and I still thought that was "Carah-cow." Accents don't help unless you know what they mean....kind of like the whole "ueber-" thing a while ago. If you aren't familiar with German, you won't know what the umlaut means. If you haven't heard "facade" before, you won't know how to pronounce it if you read it. Sometimes "c"s sound like "s" in English. Facade is just one of those words to most people, and you learn it by hearing it. Same way you learn "face" or "incise."
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kitukwfyerAug 27 '10 at 20:01

Well, there's a million British placenames that are traps for the unwary. Leicester is another famous one, but I remember there was once a dance troupe called "The Cholmondeleys and the Featherstonehaughs" (pronounced, The Chumleys and the Fanshaws")!
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thesunneversetsNov 19 '10 at 1:10

Wait, so it's not pronounced "gowl"...? Whoopsie. Not only do I have a lot of these, I also apparently haven't discovered some of them yet...This is educational AND saving me from some possible future embarrassment. Awesome.
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kitukwfyerAug 21 '10 at 2:59

22

Anyone who reads Dickens in high school would come across this word. I always thought, "gosh, I'm glad we don't have gaols in America, they sound horrible."
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Jared UpdikeAug 23 '10 at 1:53

4

Fr.: geôle; like most words related to justice, a legacy of William the Conqueror.
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niXarAug 24 '10 at 12:52

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@Konrad, the Guardian still did, last time I read a copy. But they are uncommon.
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Brian HooperNov 23 '10 at 12:17

I originally thought it was "in-you-eye".
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Joey AdamsJan 17 '11 at 2:21

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@MGOwen: this is the father-bother merge. For many US speakers, “ahn” and “on” represent the same vowel. For me (and presumably you) they’re completely different — so “ahn-wi” is accurate for them, though incorrect for us. Editing it to “on”, though, since that’s I believe accurate for everybody…
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PLLApr 2 '11 at 21:13

Place names; there's a well with no bottom. Consider also Alnwick (an-ick, but don't forget Alnmouth is al-un-mouth), Bosham (bozzum) but Cosham (cosh-um), Marylebone (mar-le-bun) and Holborn (ho-bun). And that's not counting exotica like Woolfardisworthy (woolsery) and Kirkudbright (kik-oo-bry).
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Brian HooperAug 24 '10 at 16:19

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“werst-er-sher”? I believe that’s wrong. It’s /ˈwʊstərˌʃɪər/ or /ˈwʊstərˌʃər/ (the first vowel is like the one in foot).
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TimwiNov 7 '10 at 16:28

I remember being told once that it's supposed to sound like "what's this here" mumbled and slurred together. Such as if a confused person looked at the sauce, pointed to it, and said "what's this here sauce?"
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tankadilloJan 31 '11 at 15:50

Many people pronounce it "LYE-nucks" (I do) but, as it's based on the Swedish name Linus (Linus Torvalds is Finnish but speaks Swedish). Thus the pronunciation should be "Leenux" or "Lihn-ucks" (/ˈlɪnəks/).

Actually, he's right...sort of. The man's name should be pronounced "soyce," and that is how Seuss pronounced it. However, he adopted the "soos" pronunciation since he thought it was advantageous for a children's author's name to rhyme with Mother Goose and most people pronounced it that way anyway. I'm stealing all of this from Wikipedia btw...
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kitukwfyerNov 29 '10 at 2:47

Because that's how it was originally pronounced in Norman French, with an 'f'. Modern French changed and the english spelling followed it - while of course keeping the old pronounciation
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mgbMay 6 '11 at 4:39

This one is great because so many people are convinced that they knew the right one all along, even when they are wrong. Crazy ask.metafilter thread from yesterday: ask.metafilter.com/162666/…
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KosmonautAug 19 '10 at 22:45

If only more people learned foreign languages, there wouldn't be so much confusion. There are identical constructions in many languages where the verb form is not a homograph and clearly imperative ("lees" in Dutch, "lies" or "sprich" in German, "читай" in Russian, to name but a few).
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RegDwigнt♦Aug 20 '10 at 0:19

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strange, I always thought it was pronounced "red". As in, "that last word that was just there, that should have been read 'boring'"
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ClaudiuOct 12 '10 at 22:54

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Definitely sounds like "reed". It's an instruction to the reader. "read the previous statement as meaning ____".
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TM.Feb 9 '11 at 7:07

This is easy to remember when you realise that it's named after George Boole. So it's Boolean as in Herculean.
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user774Feb 5 '11 at 19:12

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@Kit: If your "-lian" suffix sounds the same as it would in the words "mammalian", or "Mongolian", then I think you were pronouncing it correctly. Herculean is pronounced hur-kyuh-lee-uhn or hur-kyoo-lee-uhn, so Boolean is pronounced BOO-lee-uhn
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e.JamesApr 2 '11 at 0:29

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Herculean is pronounced hur-kyuh-LEE-uhn, so it follows that boolean should be pronounced boo-LEE-uhn.
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John GietzenJun 7 '11 at 22:06

I have this problem with character names in novels. Example, Hermione I pronounced as "her-mee-own", Egwene from Wheel of Time as "Egg-ween", etc. I realize I just gloss over the names really and don't even fully pronounce them in my head anyway.

About actual words... I generally have disagreements with people. Like I'll think "niche" should be pronounced "neesh", not "nitch," and "clique" as "cleek," not "click."

Niche and clique are both correct in British English.
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glenatronNov 24 '10 at 15:25

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ha ha - "I just gloss over the names really and don't even fully pronounce them in my head anyway" - i do that too, in novels. In my head I just look at the shape of the letters and think "them".
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JWEnglishDec 21 '10 at 11:01

I'm really going to embarrass myself, but I was in high school before I realized the word I had been reading, "subtle," was the same as the word I had been speaking: suht-l. In my mind SUBTLE and "SUDDLE" were two words that meant the same thing!